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Longevity, consistency breeds greatness: Ray Allen on the legend of Lebron
At 38, Lebron continues to redefine excellence and much of that comes down to how he has approached life and basketball.
Days before flying to India, two-time NBA champion Ray Allen attended a commencement ceremony back home to receive his bachelor's degree from University of Connecticut. Now 47, the prolific shooting guard completed his degree nearly three decades after leaving the university to start his stellar professional basketball career.
Propelled by the pandemic and inspired by his kids, the degree in General Studies exemplifies Allen's perseverance. Which is also a trait, the 10-time NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer reckons, defines the legend of his former teammate Lebron James beyond his record-breaking scoring and ever-inspiring aura.
Allen's second NBA crown came in 2013 with the Miami Heat, where he spent two seasons playing alongside James who became NBA's all-time top scorer in February. Allen, himself ending his 18-year career atop the all-time three-pointers' chart until Stephen Curry surpassed his mark in 2021, singles out James’s longevity in talking about his greatness.
“I think your legend grows every day, and the longer you're available (to play). Longevity, and consistency, ultimately breeds greatness. Lebron has been persistent. And he has been available for a long time. So, the longer he plays, gets more buckets, more passes, more rebounds, it just makes him more noteworthy for a long period of time,” Allen said on Friday in Mumbai, his first trip to India in which he will visit the NBA Academy India.
Drafted No. 5 in the 1996 NBA Draft, the 6’5” shooting guard established himself as a three-point marksman in the seven seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks. He then moved to the Seattle SuperSonics and Boston Celtics, where he got his first championship in 2008, before winding up his decorated NBA journey grabbing another title alongside James at Miami.
“Lebron was a great teammate. The one thing he did was he took incredible care of his body, understanding how to eat, and stretch obsessively. And he had fun. He enjoyed the game, enjoyed life off the court. All of that is what has allowed him to be so successful. And you can still see that he is enjoying playing the game of basketball. That, ultimately, is what fans end up hanging on to and appreciating," Allen said.
In his week in India, Allen will lead a basketball clinic for 50 students from the NBA Basketball School programs in the country and train with NBA Academy India prospects, hoping to better understand the Indian landscape for a game and league he believes has truly gone global.
“If you look at what the players look like in the NBA now... Giannis Antetokounmpo (born in Greece), Luka Doncic (Slovenia), Nikola Jokic (Serbia) and Joel Embiid (Cameroon), you could make an argument that those four guys are the best four players in the NBA right now. And none of them are American born. So that's just a testament to how global the game has gone over the last 20 years," he said.
India, and occasional tales of its home-grown players getting into the NBA draft before fading away, is far from that. Allen stressed the sustainability challenge eventually boils down to talent. “Maybe 20 years ago, people were questioning someone coming from Europe and whether they can hack it. But now we've seen it. I think teams don't really care where you come from. They put you on the floor and you can compete, you can play, you can shoot. If you have a good body, then you're definitely going to get a shot.”
